El tango de la Guardia Vieja [NOOK Book]

Overview

“A handsome young couple, driven by an urgent passion to experience life, lose themselves in each other’s eyes while dancing to a tango not yet written in the silent and empty ballroom of a transatlantic ship. Unknowingly tracing in their embrace the sketch of an unreal world whose weary lights have begun to give out.” A strange bet between two musicians leads one of them to Buenos Aires in 1928; an espionage affair in the French Riviera during the Spanish Civil War; and a disquieting game of chess in the ...

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Overview

“A handsome young couple, driven by an urgent passion to experience life, lose themselves in each other’s eyes while dancing to a tango not yet written in the silent and empty ballroom of a transatlantic ship. Unknowingly tracing in their embrace the sketch of an unreal world whose weary lights have begun to give out.” A strange bet between two musicians leads one of them to Buenos Aires in 1928; an espionage affair in the French Riviera during the Spanish Civil War; and a disquieting game of chess in the Sorrento of the 1960s El tango de la Guardia Vieja is a sweeping story of obscure and passionate love, betrayal and intrigue that spans over four decades of a fascinating and convulsed century, in the fading twilight of a time that is coming to an end.

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El Tango de La Guardia Vieja by Arturo Pérez-Reverete Spanish Ed

This is a love story between Máximo (Max Costas) Covas Lauro and Mercedes (Mecha) Inzunza over three distinct periods of time: 1928, 1935, and 1966.

The book opens in 1928, where Max is a professional dancer at the transatlantic luxury liner: The Cap Polonio, and he meets Meche and her husband, the famous Spanish composer Armando de Troeye. The young couple is going to Buenos Aires because Armando made a bet to the composer, Ravel, that he would compose a Tango to match Ravel’s Bolero. Max is very useful, because he grew up in the poor sections of Buenos Aires, where they still dance the original and sensual tango - which is dirtier and faster paced - than the one which is danced in the famous Parisian clubs. Max and Meche do drugs and make love - even as Armando watches - and it ends as Max steals from Meche an expensive pearl necklace that he sells in Montevideo.

Fast forward to 1966, where Meche’s son, Jorge Keller is disputing a chess match between himself and the Russian world champion, Mijaíl Sokolov. Merche convinces Max to steal Sokolov’s chess book to give the advantage to their son, Jorge. Max has to remember what it was to be young - as the book says: he has to find his old shadow - and at age 64 climb over fences and steal from the KGB and the Russian master what becomes his last adventure. While he’s doing this, Pérez-Reverete re-enacts a similar episode in 1936 where Max is forced by fascist spies to steal a series of compromising letters from one of Merche’s friends, Susana Ferriol, and again, like at every turn, Max does what he does best....

The Author of the Dumas’ Club does it again. The book is fascinating. You get a lesson in chess - its intrigues and manipulations - and in gigolo and spies‘ lives. You also feel like you’re living all three periods: the 1920’s with its luxuries, the pre WWII European situation and the Spanish civil war, and the 1960‘s and the cold war. It captures you from the beginning and it reads in a few days. Very well written, it is narrated from Max’s point of view. I recommend it to anyone who likes suspense and a good tale.

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